Last Man Standing
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Missing scene from Pacific Rim where Stacker confers with Tendo and Herc about the war.


Disclaimer - I don't own Pacific Rim at all, I'm just a fanfiction author.

Please leave feedback.

* * *

Last Man Standing.

Stacker sighed as he reached for his box of pills which he kept in his pocket to help him cope with the cancer and he washed it down with some water while his old friends and colleagues Herc Hansen and Tendo Choi were sitting at the same table, drinking shots of whiskey and trying not to look as he took the pill and popped it into his mouth.

It was against regulations to drink, but with the Jaeger program virtually on ice, what difference would it make?

Besides if he didn't know these two men well enough as he did, men who both knew about his condition, then he would have demanded their silence by threatening to report them for dereliction of duty, but Stacker would never do that to Herc or Tendo.

"Is everything set?" Stacker asked the two men as he poured himself a small glass of water.

Herc nodded. "Yeah," he said gruffly in his deep Australian accent, "Striker Eureka is now inside, but we're still awaiting Cherno Alpha."

Stacker waved his hand as he drank the water to wash the pill down.

"Do you think after what happened in Sydney will make people realise the Wall of Life program is a waste of time and effort?" Tendo just had to ask as he looked between the two grizzled men.

Herc snorted. "You're kidding, right?" he asked sarcastically.

"The Wall of Life program was only embraced by the government because they didn't want to constantly waste money on building Jaegers that are larger and more complex to fight off the higher category Kaiju. They wanted something simple and easy to build, and what's easier to build than a wall, or a gigantic robotic suit?" Stacker said before he shook his head, remembering all the arguments he'd had with several figures of government about the Wall. Inevitably he remembered all of those figures saying the anti-Kaiju wall would work, and that the Jaeger program had died a painful death.

Oh, he had heard all of those promises about the wall giving the Jaeger time to regroup and to rebuild, new Jaeger models that were larger, more complex and capable of taking on much more powerful Kaiju, strong enough to take on more brutal punishment the new Kaiju were capable of inflicting on their victims, giving what was left of the corps the time they needed to take on and train new rangers.

But Stacker had seen how empty the promises were very quickly, and he had worked out the governments were holding out all of their hope on the wall.

What was worse was that support for the building of the wall had come when the increased attacks of Kaiju as they came through the Breach in waves - exactly as Herman had predicted one of those mathematical models of his which so far had never let them down - had led to people questioning if the Jaegers were even worth it if they weren't even capable of fighting them.

But Stacker could not understand why they felt the wall was going to work. The idea behind it was to keep the Kaiju out, it wouldn't fight them off and put them down. Stacker had gotten hold of information about the wall; for years scientists and engineers had worked on calculating the exact strength the wall needed to be in order to remain whole and standing against the Kaiju while being able to stop them from spitting acid or whatever else they did and get through the wall.

Herman had looked over the calculations and he had instantly dismissed them just as Stacker had, only the scientist had worked with Newton on a very rare occasion, and the two scientists both came up with completely different results.

After he had studied the results of the work the scientists and the engineers had done on the wall to make sure they had their homework done so no Kaiju would crash through, Herman had admitted his fellow scientists had done their work well, but they had completely missed out the fact the Kaiju were coming out of the Breach in greater numbers, as was predicted by the model. Newton might tease his colleague, but Stacker could tell the other man respected Herman a great deal. And with the greater numbers, the Wall would fall apart anyway. Both scientists agreed on that - there was only so much the wall could take. It just wasn't viable enough; it was good in theory, but in practice with the evolving Kaiju the United Nations simply refused to take into account it would only be a matter of time before the walls were seen as useless. Stacker had known it from the word go as had everyone who had experience fighting the things in the first place the wall was useless - he just hadn't expected to be proven right so quickly.

Granted, Herman had admitted the Wall could hold out some of the older category Kaiju, like the one that had destroyed the Golden Gate bridge which seemed like a millennia ago, but that was the war for you as it warped time until you could barely tell if a month ten months had passed, but with the Kaiju coming out in droves, there was only so much the structure could take before it was smashed.

Newton himself had added his own comments to the report, and Stacker replayed them in his mind.

_"What people forget about Kaiju 'cos they get bigger and bigger as they evolve!"_ the scientist whom Stacker had never actually worked out was insane or eccentric or not had said, gesturing wildly. _"I dunno how they do it, but the individual Kaiju collect their experiences and transmit it through the Breach. That's how and why the Kaiju are stronger, and they have a new feature which makes them harder to fight."_

With the fairly recent attack on the Sydney wall, the obsessive but still brilliant Kaiju expert had not been surprised.

_"Okay,"_ Newt had said, _"I didn't expect it to be so quick, but it was only a matter of time before the Kaiju evolved to the point where the wall would be brought down. This is just the beginning."_

"Surely we're gonna be funded again, right?" Tendo's tentative question brought Stacker out of his thoughts, and he focused on the other man and he could see Tendo looked hopeful about there still being a chance to fight off the Kaiju. Stacker studied the other man, knowing the question was asked out of fear of his family. The only children in Stacker's life were Mako and his son, there was no-one else. It was the same for everyone here.

"I don't know," Stacker replied gently to the other man, knowing it would be hard for him to hear but he had to be truthful. "We've spent the last few months relying on black-market funds to keep the Jaeger program going, and with Striker Eureka's victory," he lifted his glass of water as a toast to Herc, "everyone will see the Jaegers are the only true way to fight back."

Hercules nodded at the salute. "Yeah. When we left Sydney, there were protests everywhere. They didn't want us to go, but we had to leave when you called us in. It was only blind luck we were still there."

Stacker nodded. Privately he was happy with the circumstances; not only had the government's pet project blown up in their face, but the incident had proven the wall was useless but the Jaegers were still capable of fighting back. Already there were protests and furious questions aimed at the government for their quickness to just end the Jaeger program without even considering keeping a few of the machines going just in case.

"Is everything ready?" Stacker asked, putting his mind on the matter at hand; the 'Wall of Life' was not his problem. His primary concern was making sure all of the Jaegers were ready. He had just brought in Raleigh Beckett to help pilot Gypsy Danger after spending months looking for him - he could guess why Beckett had chosen to work on the Wall, though it must have occurred to Beckett the wall would not work thanks to his experience as a Kaiju fighter, and he had to organise the battle plan to finally close the Breach.

"Pretty much," Herc reported. He and Stacker had gone over the plans for the last year or so with the help of Herman and some of the others, but Stacker wanted everything to be ready since this was their last chance. As Beckett had so correctly pointed out all other attempts at closing the Breach had ended in dismal failure. "We're still getting some additional weapons from the Kaidonovsky siblings, and Chau is providing us with some extra funding."

Stacker noticed the distaste in the other man's voice when he said the name Chau, not that he could blame him. Chau was the type of maggot he would not even want to look at in civilised conditions, but desperate times and all that.

"We're the last men standing," Stacker said, "we have to use everything we can get to win."

Herc didn't look thrilled, but he looked determined. Good, that was the attitude they needed in order to win this mess.


End file.
